Pie chart showing how the money spent on calls gets divided between fees, commissions and other charges.

Data Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek has estimated that the prison phone industry does $1.2 billion in business every year. (Todd Shields, Prison Phones Prove Captive Market for Private Equity, Bloomberg BusinessWeek (October 4, 2012)) Considering the speed at which pre-paid accounts are overtaking collect calls, we estimate that 90% of the market is now in pre-paid accounts. We then applied Global Tel*Link’s fee structure (as described in Tables 3 and 5 of Please Deposit All of Your Money: Kickbacks, Rates and Hidden Fees in the Jail Phone Industry. (Graph: Prison Policy Initiative, 2013)

This graph originally appeared in Please Deposit All of Your Money: Kickbacks, Rates and Hidden Fees in the Jail Phone Industry.



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